Last Friday and Saturday, the University of Toronto unveiled the new Varsity Centre in an open house for students, staff, and a gaggle of golfers, including university president David Naylor.
The Centre consists of the existing Varsity Arena-the home of U of T hockey-and the rebuilt Varsity Stadium. The stadium’s centre is currently covered with a removable air-supported dome to allow athletes to stay fit during the wintry months.
Beneath the dome, the field itself boasts state-of-the-art technology. It is one of only 40 fields in the world, and four in North America, to receive a two-star certification from soccer governing body FIFA.
The completion of the track area in the spring will mark the end of the first phase of the rebuilding of the Varsity Stadium. The next stage, which is still in planning, is to add the Centre for High Performance Sport, which will house laboratories, offices, change rooms, and an exercise studio.
The new field provides a new home to U of T’s football team, who, Kidd said, have felt like orphans for years.
“When they were first allowed to play on the new turf, they were so excited they didn’t want to leave the field.”
In the spring, when the dome is removed and the track is completed, the track and field team, and later the football team, will be the predominant users of the space.
“The new field [and] stadium can only benefit the football team and our two already strong soccer programs,” said Varsity Blues football player Andrew Mackay. The Blues football team has been without a single win since 2001.
Blues teams overall have fallen a long way since their glory days, and the physical education department cites this decline as one of many reasons for choosing the best possible materials for the new stadium.
The artificial turf is made up of grass carpeting, covered with a layer of real dirt and small rubber pellets to give the feel of real grass. Beneath the carpeting is a layer of porous asphalt, and beneath that a complicated series of pipes which allow the exposed field to drain during a rainstorm.
“In October of last year there was a record storm,” Kidd said. “All [of the other] campus fields were flooded, but the turf [being constructed] was completely dry and could have been played on.
During the morning and early afternoons, two-thirds of the field are marked off as a driving range. Student golfers will be charged $17 an hour to practice their swings, but the driving range will remain free for now-until a cash register is installed, a spokesperson said.
